Thomas Annan's photograph of dilapidated housing along Gallowgate, originally the "way to the Gallow Muir, where criminals were executed by the public hangman. Its site afterwards occupied by the Infantry Barraks, now demolished, has, through the irony of fate, become the happy hunting ground of the intinerant showman."

Annan was commissioned by The City Improvement Trust to document the inner- city slums which were scheduled for demolition and reconstruction by an act of Parliament in 1866.

In his introduction to 'The Old Closes And Streets Of Glasgow' William Young explains that this newly acquired right "to alter and reconstruct several of the more densely built areas of the city...would remove many old and interesting landmarks."

Extract from William Young's introduction to the book 'The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow'.